Customer Reviews

The Master Photographer's Lith Printing Course: A Definitive Guide to Creative Lith Printing

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If you are not a photographer who enjoys B&W for the ability to interpret an image by how it is printed or if you don't like darkroom work, you don't need this book. (If you have no darkroom experience, you need to learn the basics before buying this book. The text does assume familiarity with common processes, chemicals, and equipment.) But, if you are looking for alternative ways to print your images, lith printing may be for you. This is NOT lithographic in the sense of stark graphics, although you can get a similar effect. This process uses lith developer to affect the appearance of light and dark tones, usually with striking, soft, subtle, colorful effects. It is a simple process requiring patience and attention and this book tells you how to do it. The author writes in a style that is comfortable both for photographers that don't like technical details and for those who like a deeper understanding of the process. He includes lots of sample and comparison photos. He has very helpful charts, an index and a glossary at the back of the book. He discusses papers and their characteristics. Instructions are simple but clear, with lots of tips. They cover basic lith printing up to more advanced techniques such as toning, bleaching, and redevelopment. This is the only book dedicated to this process that I know of, but it is pretty much all you need.

"The Master Photographer's Lith Printing Course" is a beautiful comprehensive guide to Lith printing. Not to be confused with ultra-contrasty lith film, Lith printing is a technique by which a print is overexposed and then partially developed in Lith developer to produce a print that is colored monochrome. Prints typically have black shadows, colored mid-tones and burned-out highlights. The photographs must be printed on lith or other suitable black-and-white paper, and the colors produced vary according to the paper and technique. Lith prints may also be toned for additional color effects. Lith printing can be done from color negatives, but normally black-and-white negatives are preferable.

A photography book should be illustrated with example photographs that the reader can admire and would want to emulate. Author Tim Rudman must agree. "The Master Photographer's Lith Printing Course" contains about 125 example photographs, nicely reproduced, that are inspirational. The book is also very well organized. It starts with an introduction and FAQ. Chapter 1 provides an overview of lith printing which explains what effects lith printing produce, why, and to what subjects it might be suited. Chapter 2 talks about the equipment and materials you will need, including the qualities of each paper and developer that may be used in lith printing. Chapter 3 explains how to make a basic lith print. Chapter 4 goes into more detail about controlling printing and developing for various effects, including dodging, burning, and selective development. Chapter 5 talks about the whys and wherefores of pepper fogging, among other difficulties, and offers solutions. Chapter 6 is a short course in the chemistry behind lith printing, an understanding of which will help you prevent and solve problems. Chapter 7 is about controlling color in prints during development. Chapter 8 discusses toning lith prints, specifically with gold, selenium, and selenium plus gold toners for stunning effects. Chapter 9 talks about redeveloping conventional prints in lith developer. Chapter 10 introduces some "lith look-a-like effects" that can be achieved with sodium-hydroxide enriched developer, split-thiocarbamide toning, and various bleaching techniques. Some of these produce breathtaking results. Everything is generously illustrated. Tips and cautions are displayed in conspicuous colored boxes. The topics covered in each chapter are set out at the beginning of the chapter. The only fault I have with the book is minor: The captions that explain the photographs are quite good, but they are so small as to be difficult to read.

It should be noted that Tim Rudman is British, and he uses the British names for lith papers. UK/US/Australian paper equivalents are given in the excellent appendices in the back of the book. Also found in the appendices are: a troubleshooting guide, paper characteristics for 19 papers discussed in the book, a color guide that tells us which papers produce which colors under what circumstances, a paper speed reference table, an f-stop chart for printing, a glossary, and a list of US, UK, and Australian suppliers.

Some photographers might like to duplicate the style of lith prints in the digital darkroom. It would certainly be safer. If you're committed the digital darkroom, Tim Rudman's breathtaking prints can still serve as an inspiration. I generally prefer traditional prints for black-and-white photographs, as they convey a depth that is easily distinguished from digital prints when examined closely. And all lith prints will be one-of-a-kind, which could be a source of great pride or great frustration, depending on your mood. In any case, "The Master Photographer's Lith Printing Course" is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow, beautifully illustrated manual of Lith printing. I'm sure that wet darkroom printers of all levels will find this an interesting technique to try.

More than 1 year ago, I purchased Tim's first book, "The Photographer's Master Printing Course'. I felt I needed to go to the next level in my printing of black and white images. Little did I know how this book would change my printing and darkroom life. There was a small chapter on Lith Printing and this got me started, and, addicted!, to it.

With the publication of Tim's Lith book, it is the one and only book covering this little known, but, simple printing process that can add new firepower to the serious black and white printer's arsenal of techniques. As an avid 'Lithaholic', I am fascinated at the transformation of many of my black and white images into another realm of artistic interpretation with many directions with which to go. Tim lays it all out, in simple, easy to follow directions covering every aspect of this process. No one could have done a better job compiling years of experimentation into a text that will save the printer untold time in arriving at many lovely works of art using a process that I feel will be popularized by this book. It is an instantaneous classic that will be the first of many publications featuring lith printing.

All praise to Tim Rudman!! Thank you Tim.

Very well organized and written, this book is a must for beginners and advanced lith printers alike. I am new to the process and found the book was easy to follow with great examples. The author provided lists of supplies and suppliers to make it even easier to get started as well as charts of specific papers and the effects of various developers so the beginner would know what to expect. This is not just a how-to book, but instead the author encourages exploration within the process.

I can't imagine what posessed the last reviewer to complain about the print size of this book. It's the content that matters! This is a superb book that opens up this beautiful photographic process and makes it real, understandable and 'doable' for the first time. It is really an inspirational book as well as being practical and instructional. Tim is a great teacher and communicator. Wonderful stuuf. Thank you.

Harry

Lith Printing is hands down one of the most beautiful and intriguing alternative processes that exists. I have always been attracted to alternative processes and over the years I have tried a lot of the alternative processes that exist including Platinum & Palladium printing, Cibachrome prints, Wet Plate processes, Polaroid transfers, cross processing, and many many others. There is just something very different about Lith prints. The newspaper grainy images and the surreal colors can turn an ordinary print into something truly magical. Lith printing is actually one of the easiest to pick up and one of the hardest to master so I picked up tips, techniques, and advice anywhere I could find it. Over the years I acquired a substantial library of books, articles, original prints, and I even did a workshop in Europe that specialized in Lith printing. With that being said this book has always been one of my favorite Lith printing references.

First and foremost this book does a remarkable job at showing you just what this process can do. The pictures are stunning and are extremely inspirational. They really run the gamut subject wise and that really leaves the reader with a very good understanding of what this process can bring to the different categories of photographic subject matter. There are a lot of photo books that excel at instruction yet ultimately fail to inspire. This book is certainly not one of them. This is easily one of the most inspirational photo books I have ever read.

Of course this book would be severely lacking if all it had were pretty pictures. Fortunately the instructional aspect to this book is equally impressive. Everything is covered and its organized extremely well. Equipment, supplies, techniques, its all here. This book has something for everyone including people who have been Lith printing for years. The chapters regarding toning are some of the best I have ever seen.

Lith Printing was rare even when everyone was still shooting with film. Now that digital has practically taken over, processes like these are just that much rarer and it makes me appreciate them just that much more. If you want to really add some distinction to your portfolio then you should really give this process a look. I have yet to see a digital print even come close to matching the look and quality that this process gives you. If your still shooting with film and your looking for something different then you should honestly give Lith Printing a try. If you do decide to give it a go, this book is without a doubt the place to start.

If this book doesn't inspire you to learn this process then nothing will.

5 stars!!

I really wanted this book. I have tried to read it! The print is so very very small that it is impossible to read without a magnifying glass. I just can't do it. The sad part is, there is plenty of room on most of the pages for a larger print to have been used. It looks like it was printed with a size 8 font and maybe a size 6 under the photos. I cannot in all honesty say that I have read this book. I have looked at the photos only. If the type were readable, it would have been read cover to cover by now and I would have implemented what I had learned! What a shame that the publisher let this go with such small print. Maybe when the second edition comes out, they will print it larger. I will buy that edition when it comes out. Tim Rudman worked very hard putting this wonderful book together, only for the publishers to blow it. This will be the first book I have ever returned to Amazon.com. Geri Moore, photographer earthdancerimages.com

I think Tim Rudman is a great photographer and teacher. However, the whole point of this book is pretty thin. Back when I was in grad school, I thought I would impress Nathan Lyons by telling him that I wanted to do an entire portfolio in Bromoil prints. "At some point, you have to decide if you want to be a technician or a photographer." Was his typically clipped reply.
It was good advice that has stuck with me all these years though.

As a big fan of darkroom photography, I nearly choke on the words "Better in Photoshop". But truthfully, most of the lith printing techniques outlined in this book can be duplicated using Photoshop at 1/10 the price and time. Sure, you may be able to finally make something interesting out of that photo of your cat, but chances are you'd be better off spending time and money making more photographs and thinking about why you actually make them.
Not a bad diversion for those who like darkroom work, but a dangerous distraction for those attracted to making images with content.